


When The Stars Go Blue

by elbeen



Category: Private Practice
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Gen, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 06:30:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3109577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elbeen/pseuds/elbeen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One-shot. Violet-centric. Dealing with her feelings about being pregnant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When The Stars Go Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story in 2009, during season 2. Originally, it was supposed to be a longer and more dramatic story and Violet was supposed to lose the baby. Also, she and Pete were supposed to get together. But then once the show went in a different direction I decided to just give this a quick ending.

When she confessed her loneliness to Pete, she never thought she’d end up in this mess.

 

The first one was easy. It was _his_ and she was in college; she had to get rid of it.

 

The second time she justified it in her head by telling herself that it wasn’t a good time. It had been an accident, and she had just started her year-long clinical internship.

 

The third time she couldn’t make that choice so easily, and that’s how she ended up in her current predicament.

 

Resting her head on his shoulder and inhaling his familiar scent was comforting for her. It was something she had smelled so many times before that she almost forgot her present situation.

Cooper sighed. “It’s time to come out of the closet.”

She laughed, despite her upset and the disruption of her peace. “I don’t know how Charlotte will feel when she hears she’s marrying a gay man,” she teased.

“Hey, leave my bride out of this! Go deal with your own men.”

She groaned. “Do I have to?”

“Yes. Up, now.”

She stood up. “Fine. Go home to your bride and have sex.” She paused and then joked, “But use a condom, or she’ll end up like me!”

* * *

 

A week later she allowed Cooper to reassure her that he’d be there for her through the pregnancy and after the baby is born. She still wasn’t sure if she even wanted to have the baby, but Cooper’s offer to move in made her feel better. She wasn’t thinking far into the future; she was just thinking about how in that moment she wanted to feel safe again, so she agreed.

* * *

A week after that was when everything started to go wrong. She’d had a plan – hide this from everyone until it was too obvious to keep secret anymore. That plan was ruined when Dell came into her office to ask about the baby he delivered earlier. She sat there clutching her cramping stomach and trying to hide the pain, but Dell saw her wince and she decided to be honest. She knew she could trust him.

He thought it would be best if he did a sonogram since she hadn’t seen a doctor yet. He explained that the cramping was probably just from her uterus expanding, and he showed her a picture of the baby and its beating heart. As she watched the baby’s heart beat she could feel her own heart thumping and beating faster. She tried to catch her breath, but she ended up gasping for air until she was hyperventilating. Just seeing the baby made it so much more real than it had felt before. A few minutes later she was sipping the cup of water Dell had gotten her and feeling calmer.

She was embarrassed about having a panic attack in a situation where most mothers-to-be were either grinning like idiots or crying happy tears, but Dell assured her that everything she was feeling was normal. Despite the fact that just a few hours earlier she had told Dell that she wasn’t ready to tell Pete and Sheldon about the baby, she asked them both to meet her in her office. As she was talking to them, she didn’t feel emotionally connected to the words she was saying; it was as if she was talking about someone else. She wasn’t the girl who slept with two men at once and she certainly wasn’t the girl who got pregnant and didn’t know who the father was. However, the bile quickly rising from her stomach reminded her that she was. After listening to their annoyed reactions she ran to the bathroom and emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl. She wasn’t sure if it was the pregnancy or if the anxiety and guilt Dell mentioned had finally become too much to deal with.

Her caseload that day involved helping Cooper’s patient, Patty. She really didn’t want to help with a child because Patty was a constant reminder of her current condition, but she couldn’t refuse to help the little girl. She wanted her to get the surgery she needed.

As she watched Cooper talk to Patty after the surgery, she was reminded of how good he was with kids and how awkward she felt around them.

“Couldn’t you take care of me? And Violet?” Patty pleaded with him.

That caught Violet’s attention.

_‘She wants me to help take care of her? I guess she didn’t hate talking to me this morning.’_

As they walked out of the room, Violet wished they could have done more for Patty. That was the first time she felt anything maternal and realized that maybe she could have this baby.

* * *

Another week went by fairly normally, until the patient with postpartum psychosis came in. Violet had seen a few patients with postpartum depression or psychosis and never thought she’d have to worry about it, but this time it made her worry that this could happen to her. Cooper guaranteed her it wouldn’t and if it did, they’d deal with it.

She always tried to help her patients the best she could but with this baby it felt different. She felt the instinct to protect this baby. Then Pete got involved with the case because he felt that both parents needed to be involved and informed. His passion for this opinion stemmed from the fact that Violet had kept him and Sheldon shut out, and he just wanted to know what was going on with her and the baby that possibly could be his. Violet surprised herself by feeling comfortable holding this baby. Usually she’d pass a baby along as quickly as possible, but not this time. Again, she found herself wondering if she had been wrong about herself; maybe she would be a good mom.

She’d managed to avoid Sheldon for a while, and Pete was still annoyed with her so she didn’t have to worry about talking to either of them. Her avoidance was working until Sheldon cornered her and asked her to help him run a couples counseling group. In an attempt the help the couples, she ended up admitting her fears and reasons for not wanting to share her feelings with Sheldon.

After the group sessions, she went back to trying to avoid Sheldon. She saw Dell grabbing some food out of the refrigerator and placing it on the island. He was the only one in the room, and she had just made a decision, so she decided to talk to him.

Addison was just about to enter the room to wash her coffee cup, but she paused to listen when she heard Violet and Dell talking.

“Hey, Dell, do you have a minute?"

“Sure. What’s going on?”

“Well, I was thinking, and I decided that I’m going to have this baby.”

“That’s great!”

“I’m still not sure about the being a mother part, but I think I can manage the pregnancy part. One step at a time! That’s what I tell my patients, so I guess I should take my own advice sometimes,” she said awkwardly, still uncertain.

He nodded. “Sounds good.”

“And, if I’m gonna go through with this, I want you to be my doctor.”

“Really? You want me to deliver the baby too?”

“Of course.”

“Wow. Thanks!”

Addison felt a twinge of jealousy because she was the one who wanted a baby and she couldn’t have one. _‘Violet didn’t even want a baby and it happened accidentally for her.’_ She sighed, and quickly turned to walk back to her office.

* * *

 

A few days later Violet had seen all of her patients for the day, but due to a cancellation she still had forty minutes before the practice closed. She thought about leaving early, but decided to finish some paperwork and check her e-mail. The ad at the top of her inbox was for a baby names website. Violet hadn’t given any consideration to baby names before, but she thought it might be good to look at a few. At first she was overwhelmed because it reminded her of all the things she still had to buy for the baby. She ended up enjoying looking at the names and after 45 minutes her top choices was Avery Elisabeth for a girl and Austin Noah for a boy. However, she could see herself changing her mind before the next seven months passed. _‘And what if the father had any suggestions?’_ she wondered, _‘The baby’s last name should still be Turner…right?’_

 

And, as quickly as they had left, the anxious feelings returned.

 


End file.
